A Voyage on the Northern Light

A Voyage in the ‘Northern Light’

Frank Haslewood

From Murray’s Magazine, VOL. III—NO. XIII, 1888.

Digitized by Doug Frizzle, http://Stillwoods.Blogspot.Com, March 2016

During the winter months, all communication between Prince Edward Island and the mainland by ordinary vessels is closed by the dangerous ice which at that time fills Northumberland Strait, and renders navigation impossible, except by specially constructed craft. Anyone whom chance at this time compels to travel from one side to the other has the choice of two routes—one by the Dominion Government Ice-steamer Northern Light, running as opportunity offers between Pictou, in Nova Scotia, and Georgetown, on the island, a distance of about 45 miles, the other by ice-boats between Cape Traverse on the island, and Cape Tormentine on the mainland, a distance of about 9 miles. However, it generally happens that no choice offers, for while the 'Northern Light' commences running as soon as navigation is impossible for the ordinary passenger steamers, the ice-boats do not generally start work until the ice has prevented the 'Northern Light' being relied upon for a daily trip. Roughly the steamer runs up to about the 20th of January, and again from about the 10th of March, till navigation re-opens, while the ice-boats commence about the 15th of January, and run till about the 10th of April, the dates of course changing with the character of the winter.

Being compelled to reach Halifax (N. S.) on a certain day, and finding the ice-steamer at the time somewhat erratic in her movements, owing to an immense and unusual quantity of ice in the strait, I determined on what is known as "the Capes route," my decision being influenced by the fact that the postal authorities had determined to use the same route for the transmission of mails. Accordingly, one 14th of January, I left Charlotte Town at 3 P.M., by train for County Line station, whence sleighs are procurable for Cape Traverse. The 31 miles being safely negotiated, a stay of an hour was necessary while the sleighs were getting ready, and at 6.30 we (for I was fortunate enough to find a friend travelling the same way) left for Cape Traverse, the night being luckily brilliantly lit up by a moon nearly at the full. As ours was the first trip of the season, the track, which later on is plain and well worn, was at this time only existing in the imagination of our drivers, as the snow was lying in all its virgin purity so deep that only the top-rail of the fences was visible in many places, and our horses had to stagger along generally well up to their bellies. This being the condition of the track, it is not to be wondered at that the thirteen miles from the railway to Cape Traverse occupied fully four hours, and as the thermometer was somewhere about zero, we were, in spite of numerous fur-coats and rugs, heartily glad when the lights of Muttart’s hotel announced the end of our journey. Here we found accommodation for the night, and having learnt that there was every probability of an early start and a good crossing, we slept the sleep of the just, in a small four-double-bedded-room, through which the stove-pipe passed from the room below and diffused an uncomfortable degree of unwholesome warmth.

Seven the next morning found us up and eager to start, and a few minutes later the boats’ crews appeared, and preparations commenced in earnest. The ice-boats themselves may be described, as far as description is necessary, in a few words: they are simply flattish-bottomed boats, 15 to 18 feet long, and about 5 feet beam; they are fitted with two keels, 15 inches apart, which, while the boat is on the ice, act as runners and convert her into a sleigh. For convenience of hauling out of the water and on to the ice, they have flat bows (like a Chinese sampan) carried well aft and this enables them also to take the water again more comfortably than would a boat with the ordinary stem. For hauling on the ice, a number of leather belts are fitted with manilla attachment to the thwarts, and each man of the crew, as well as each passenger, has one of these told off to him; these tow-lines answer another purpose, for should any one in dragging fall through the ice, the strap will bring him up. Everything being in readiness, a start was made from the house at about 8 A.M., the two boats being drawn by horses as far as the condition of the "board," or shore ice, rendered practicable, and after that crew and passengers in the drag- ropes hauled them over till water was reached. This dragging, even on smooth ice, is sufficient exercise to put the blood in good circulation, and do away with the necessity for any extra clothing, care, however, being taken to protect the nose and cars.

At the edge of the board ice, we found the tide running past at about a knot an hour, but the clumpets of ice passing at the same time gave quite a novel experience, making one feel, for a second or so, quite giddy; however, the "Captain " launched us out, and the four boatmen taking their places, away we pulled, the skipper very cleverly availing himself of the lanes of water to make progress as nearly in the required direction as possible. When no passage appeared, out jumped the bowman, painter in hand, on to the ice, then followed the crew and last of all the passengers, and all being once more harnessed, away we go again, over the field ice till water once again compels us to take to the boat. On smooth ice the boat goes along easily and rapidly enough, but where big pieces (clumpets) have been piled one upon another, the labour is hard and the progress slow. The hardest work is getting the boat through what is called "lolly," a composition of half-frozen water, mixed with half-melted snow, with an occasional floating cake of ice, the whole packed too closely together to render pulling practicable, yet not firm enough to bear a man’s weight; through this it is only possible to make way very painfully and slowly with boat-hooks and paddles, and the lolly is consequently the bug-bear of the passage; we were lucky enough to get over with a good deal of open water, and not much lolly, as our journey was accomplished in three and a half hours to the board ice on the mainland shore.

The passage, as a rule, is made in about four hours, sometimes, however, taking six or seven or more, and much less frequently taking a little over two hours. The board ice on this side was very heavy, big clumpets sticking up everywhere, with the intervening space filled with soft snow several feet deep, and here one may get pretty severe bruises from slipping through the snow till the shin-bone brings one up on the sharp edge of a piece of blue ice. The only danger in crossing on a fine day is from frost-bite, or getting wet through falling through the ice; but as a rule care will prevent the former, while the latter is guarded against by keeping one hand on the gunwale of the boat, while tracking and standing by to throw the weight on to the boat should the ice appear treacherous.

We arrived at Cape Tormentine about noon, and here we had a somewhat rough but very welcome meal preparatory to another sleigh drive of 40 miles to Amherst, the nearest station on the Intercolonial line. About 17 miles from Cape Tormentine a stay is made at Port Elgin to change horses, and the whole journey from the Cape to Amherst occupied about seven hours. We arrived at the latter place about 8 P.M., just in time to escape a very heavy rain storm, which lasted three days. As we took train here the novelty of the journey ceases, to be resumed on our arrival at Pictou for our trip by the 'Northern Light' to Georgetown.

Since taking the above trip I have made another crossing, and in the interval some very important improvements have taken place. The Prince Edward Island Railway now runs down to Cape Traverse, and the whole journey from Charlotte Town takes two hours. A very fair hotel, the Lansdowne, has been built there, affording good accommodation. On the mainland again a line is contemplated, I think partly graded from Cape Tormentine to Amherst, and when this is completed the Capes route will have lost one of its greatest terrors, a cold sleigh drive of 40 miles. As to the actual crossing, the accidents are very few and very far between. Thirty years ago a party was out, I think, three days, and at last made the mainland nearly opposite Charlotte Town, one man, a young medical student, having died; while another, now a popular medical man in Charlotte Town, lost both feet at the instep from frost-bite. In January 1885 three boats left Cape Traverse, and, being caught in an easterly snow storm, had to remain out all night on a pan of ice, with the temperature at 16 deg. below zero. They burnt one boat and a bag of newspapers, and finally landed late on their second afternoon. Of these men few escaped without some injury—one man lost both hands and feet, while others lost fingers, toes, or portions of hands or feet. Still I believe I am right in saying no mail has ever been lost, and this speaks volumes for the skill and pluck of these men who, during the hardest months of the winter, form the only link between Prince Edward Island and the main.

On my return journey I arranged to go by the ice-steamer from Pictou in Nova Scotia, to Georgetown on Prince Edward's Island. When I arrived at Pictou I found that the 'Northern Light' had not come in, and I had to wait there five days for her. The heavy rain, which commenced just after our arrival at Amherst, had at Pictou, and in fact all over Nova Scotia, caused such a "silver thaw" as had not been known for five-and-twenty years. The rain falling at a very low temperature, had frozen on everything as it fell, and the telegraph wires particularly presented a most unusual spectacle, as they had a coating of at least half an inch of clear ice, the wires themselves being plainly visible like the thread as seen in a string of crystal beads. All along them, too, were small pendant icicles, and the weight of this collection of ice was in many places so great as to break the wires. Near Pictou there is a road running between large willows, and as every tiny twig had its coating of ice, the effect, as one drove through with the setting sun glinting upon these thousands of little mirrors, was one of singular beauty, an effect that the proprietors of ornamental trees will be indeed sorry to see repeated, as the broken branches which strewed the roads showed how disastrous this silver thaw had been.

At last, on the 20th of January, the steamer arrived, and that same evening we went on board to be ready for an early start. I was lucky enough to get a cabin, a matter of some little difficulty, as, owing to the delay, passengers had been collecting at Pictou for a week back; so that, when we came to count heads, it was found that we had forty-seven passengers, while the vessel only afforded sleeping accommodation for eighteen, so that the majority had to sleep where they could, some on the saloon deck, some on the tables and lockers, and "others elsewheres," as Punch’s cabman has it. Of the forty-seven passengers, five were women, and one a baby girl of eighteen months, the private property of the writer; in fact my business in Halifax had been to meet my wife, who, with the above-mentioned child and her nurse, were now on board.

At 7 A.M. on the 21st of January, we left the board ice at Pictou and proceeded on our way, following the lanes of water as well as we could, occasionally coming across fields of eight-inch ice through which the vessel had to cut her way. Into ice of this thickness, with a run of 60 or 70 yards, she can cut about her own length, and has then to be backed to ram the ice again and again till a passage is cleared. Working on in this way, we got on so well that we had a fair prospect of making the trip before dark, but about 4 P.M. we got among field ice at least 12 inches thick, and out of this no way was visible. The vessel was rammed at this, but the progress made was so slight, that it was thought wise to wait till next morning for a better opening. The shock with which the vessel came against this thick ice was so severe that it was difficult to keep one’s feet, and it most certainly proved the great strength of the vessel and the confidence of her commander, Captain Finlayson, that she should come out of these charges, made at full speed, altogether uninjured.

Chart of the Northern Light’s Course.

We had by this time arrived within about 8 miles of the island shore, and 20 miles from Georgetown, so our prospect was a good one. Next day, (Saturday), however, we found her firmly fixed in the pack, and had to be content with breaking the ice round the vessel, so that should an opening occur we might be ready for it. On Sunday the 23rd, no opening came, so we had to make ourselves as happy as we could. This was hard enough, for the field had drifted much closer to the island, and the contemplation of the land where we would be was not cheering when separated from it by impenetrable blue ice. This Sunday is marked in my mental log by the remarkable fact, that a passenger with a fiddle, who had since leaving Pictou, played jigs, apparently without stopping even for necessary food or sleep, was compelled by his ignorance of sacred music to maintain an unwilling silence; but this so preyed on his mind that he remained up till midnight, when he recommenced his secular strains; remembering that he, poor fellow, had no place to sleep in, it seemed hard to deprive him of his pleasure, so he was allowed to go on in peace.

On Monday morning (the 24th), the prospect being still as bad as ever, one of the two ice-boats belonging to the ship was lowered on to the ice and sent ashore with sixteen passengers (of whom the fiddler was one) and six of the crew, the latter being sent to bring the boat back. This party reached the shore, about 7 miles off, about 1 P.M., having started at 8 A.M., and all, save for some slight frost-bites, were well. The boat returned to us on Thursday the 27th. During her absence, and to raise our drooping spirits, we started games of football on the ice, using a small ball of old clothes for the usual "leather." The ship during this time was closely packed and drifting with the ice slowly to the eastward.

On the 28th a movement of the ice caused the ship to be heavily nipped, the field on one side remaining stationary, while that on the other kept pressing against the side. Remembering that the ice was quite a foot thick and was being forced on the ship by the movement of a field extending as far as the eye could reach, some idea may be formed of the strain to which the vessel was subjected. The beams kept up a dismal creaking and bent up in some cases a couple of inches, and the ice cracked with frequent loud reports, as, unable to force the ship, it gave to the weight behind it and piled in big blocks alongside.

The awful part of this nipping is the feeling of utter helplessness with which you see it. Nothing you can do with any human assistance appears likely to help, and there you stand, watching as calmly as you may the struggle between this natural force and that you have to pit against it; you know cither you must give way or the ice must, and you anxiously wonder which it is to be. However, after about an hour of this, the running ceased, the beams gradually resumed their normal positions, and all of us breathed freely once more, thankful to that Providence which had rescued us.

On this day it was deemed advisable, not knowing how long we might be imprisoned, to reduce our daily three meals to two, and these were not to include fresh meat, that luxury being reserved for the baby, a luxury, by the way, that she enjoyed all through our detention in the ice, and to which I suppose she owes the fact that she came out of this adventure alive.

On Saturday (the 30th of January) the ice-boat left again at 7 A.M. with fourteen passengers and eight crew, the shore then being distant about 9 miles. This party was not as lucky as the first, for night came on before they reached the shore, and so they camped on the ice under the lee of the boat. Some of the passengers were with difficulty kept from sleeping, while others stamped monotonously up and down until daylight showed them the land, distant about 2 miles, with a narrow strip of lolly separating them from the board ice. This lolly was so thick, that weary as they were they found themselves utterly unable to force their boat through it, so leaving her on the ice, they all struck out with boat-hooks and oars struggling for the shore, and sometimes knee deep, sometimes up to their necks, and sometimes lucky enough to get on a clumpet sufficient foothold for another spring, they all at length came safe to land.

Of this party several were badly frost-bitten, one so seriously that it was at first feared that he must lose both feet, but careful nursing brought him through with only the loss of a couple of toes; however, he never was himself again, and died a few months later. The boat was afterwards recovered by some people from the shore, but she never came back to us, and we were much exercised about her, as the signal fire they were ordered to light on their arrival was never shown, and consequently we were much afraid that ill had befallen them.

The day after the departure of the second boat-load we had at 5 A.M. the heaviest nip to which the vessel has during her five years’ work been subjected, and the iron beam running across between the boilers was bent and displaced so much, that on the ship’s recovering herself, the beam drew its bolts and remained in its maimed condition, a monument to the severity of the strain. Another beam farther aft was also considerably injured, and after this nip, too, the vessel commenced to leak considerably, but not sufficiently to be dangerous, as the donkey pump could clear the ship working twenty minutes a watch, or two hours a day. The iron beam to which the ship’s safety on this occasion was principally due was put in, I believe, at Capt. Finlayson’s suggestion, after the ship’s first season’s work as an additional protection in her weakest spot

All this time we were drifting slowly but constantly to the eastward, and after another week’s monotonous confinement it was determined to send away the ship’s sole remaining ice-boat, and she accordingly left on the 9th of February with eleven passengers, of whom two were women, and three of the crew. This reduced our number to nineteen in all, or allowing for the three women, the child, and a sick passenger, thirteen all told to work the ship, and of these not one was rated a seaman. This last party started for the shore, then distant about 13 miles at 7 A.M., and they were out all night, reaching Georgetown at 10 the next morning; luckily the women, one of whom had walked two-thirds of the way, while the other insisted upon being dragged in the boat, were well; but some of the passengers and a fireman were badly bitten; the latter's bite I presume is mainly attributable to the nature of his occupation having made his feet tender.

Shortly after this diminution of our numbers, the ice ahead of us opened showing a long lane of water, from which we were separated by about 20 yards of solid ice and a "pan" or ice island about 50 yards in diameter; the latter we hoped to be able to move bodily. We commenced to cut the ship free, contenting ourselves the first day with sawing and breaking out the surface ice for 2 feet all round the ship, and hauling the broken pieces up on the main pack so as to leave the vessel clear; we also cut away the ice about 9 feet from her stem, so as to allow the ship to move her engines. After the departure of the last load of passengers we had found it necessary, or wise, to reduce the food allowance to one full meal at 1 P.M., and this with work on the ice from 7 A.M., was little enough. Working every day we managed by the 11th to cut a strip of ice out, relieving the pan or ice island already mentioned; this we afterwards started with screw-jacks and pinch-bars, and wind and tide moved it clear for us, so that now we only had the 20 yards of ice to clear away between us and a lead which extended as far as the eye could reach.

During this day’s work, the writer, with his usual handiness, walked into a hole with an 8-foot iron bar, and, not having, sense enough to let it go, he stood a fair chance of accompanying it below the ice; but the skipper's voice warned him of the folly of this proceeding, and he was hauled on to the ice a colder, a wetter, and, we hope, a wiser man. Every one but the sick man and the women helped, and, as the latter did the cook’s and. steward’s work, these men shared in the labour of ice-cutting.

By the afternoon of the 12th of February we had managed to cut a passage 25 feet wide from the ship to the water, and so we tried the ship’s engines. The motion of the vessel started the ice under her bottom, and it came up choking our canaL These lumps we got rid of at last, but one was so big that it had to be smashed up into three pieces before it could be cleared; and, as this lump took twelve men working hard an hour to move out, its size may be guessed at. To realize the nature of the work of clearing a passage, it is necessary to point out that the ice here was packed lump under lump below the surface ice, and was in many places quite 20 feet thick, though, of course, when the upper cake (generally 3 or 4 feet thick) was started, a good deal of the rest came up, but some pieces could not free themselves and remained partly under the surface ice and partly jutting into our canal. Of the lump we had so much bother with, I can only call it a small berg, which, when cleared, floated quite 3 feet out of water, indicating a thickness of, at least, 15 feet.

It was night when we had completed our passage and cleared it, so, although we had a good moon, we determined to leave her where she was till daylight All that night it blew a whole gale from the S.E., and, as the ship’s head pointing through our passage was N.W., we found it clear in the morning, and the wind had opened a good deal more water, so we got up steam. Just five minutes before steam was up, the ice on our quarter opened; but, unfortunately, the released field, influenced by the wind, swung right across our poor little canal, and after a week’s labour we were barred again. Any one wishing to know what a sudden depression of spirits is, should try and fancy himself in our position. At one moment a straight opening to a patch of clear water of unknown extent, at the next all our hopes smashed—our chances of escape all vanished. However, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been, for in a short time the ice again swung, our canal once more appeared, and, steam being all ready, our good ship forged ahead out of the cradle in which she had lain for over three weeks.

On we went through the lanes of water, making what progress we could and in any direction, so that we approached the island, for coal was now scarce, and our one object was to make the island board ice anywhere. By 3 P.M. we had worked up to within 4 miles of the island shore, but the loose ice, blown up from the south-eastward by the last night's gale, now lay closely packed against the island board ice. One good thing cheered us here—namely, the certainty that now at least our island friends knew where we were, and we felt sure that every effort would be made to bring us ashore.

All Sunday afternoon and night we kept steam handy and availed ourselves of every opening; but still we were gradually setting towards the east end of the island, distant at sunset about 7 miles. What was to happen if the drift took us beyond East Cape with little food, little coal, and little chance of help from the island, I think none of us cared to look into too closely. During the night the watchful care of our skipper in availing himself of every chance, kept us fairly in position, and we hoped for good resulting from a strong N.W. breeze which was likely to set the ice from the island shore, and give us a chance of clear water inside. During this night the writer gave another instance of his peculiar handiness. The Northern Light has often to steam astern with much ice in her track, and, to prevent accidents which might easily happen from her rudder coming in contact with ice during stemway, a strong clamp of iron passes round the drum of her wheel and is controlled by a firm pressure on a footplate near the helmsman. The writer, in the absence of the crew with the ice-boats, was at the helm and was perfectly acquainted with the peculiarities of the situation. Once, and only once, his mind was allowed during stemway to travel to the joys of reaching land, when in a second the wheel took charge, flew round, and slung the wretched scribbler of these lines violently against the opposite side of the wheelhouse. I said he forgot himself once; with this reminder of his fault it is not necessary to say that it did not occur again. Valentine’s Day broke upon us fine and bright, and, to our great joy, showed us a clear strip of water bordering the board ice, and in this, with high spirits and thankful hearts, we steamed smoothly along at about nine knots an hour, making fast in the board ice at Georgetown at 11 A.M., twenty-four days out from Pictou.

As we entered the harbour we picked up an ice-boat, and I was surprised to recognize in its crew the very men who just that day month had taken me across the straits. The agent of Marine and Fisheries, alarmed for our safety, had ordered this crew up from Cape Traverse, to attempt the relief of the ship, as our provisions were known to be short. Four years later I crossed the straits with the skipper of this crew, and he said in speaking of the incident: “What we wanted to see was the baby, and when they held her up we would have cheered, but we were too glad to see her alive to think of it.” If their hearts were full, what were ours when at the end of this cruise, we said good-bye to those who had been our companions during a 46 miles passage of twenty-four days? To Captain Finlayson and his officers, we owe much, and they know our gratitude is theirs.

Perhaps the greatest personal hardship I had to undergo during this cruise was the deprivation of tobacco for a fortnight, and this is a trial, the severity of which, none who read this can understand, unless (being constant smokers) they have been placed in similar positions. My tobacco lasted about ten days, and as we always hoped to get out in a day or two, I did not cut down my expenditure until too late to make the reduction of any practical use in prolonging my enjoyment. After about a week of hopeless longing for the solace of a pipe, I accidentally heard that the second mate, who was ashore with one of the ice-boats, usually carried tobacco in his chest, and as he was the captain's brother, I tried to prevail upon our commander to examine the box. However, it proved to be locked, but my evident disappointment conquered the captain's scruples, and the bottom of the chest was taken off, and we discovered two figs of what under ordinary circumstances I should have considered unsmokable tobacco, but which now was a veritable treasure; brother smokers will understand how it was shared out and enjoyed. The memory of the pipefuls then carefully smoked will remain with me longer than that of any "Old Gold," or "Straight Cut No. 1" I’ve consumed before or since. Had we had more tobacco, I've no doubt our reduced allowance of food would have seemed more ample, for I well remember, how, when encamped for a lengthened period, as part of a shipwrecked crew, on a desert island in the Indian Ocean, the fact of our having a plentiful supply of the fragrant weed staved off the pangs of hunger, which naturally and frequently arose with an allowance of four ounces of biscuit, and half a pound of meat.

In Unknown British Guiana -Part 1

In Unknown British Guiana . . . Part 1

By A. Hyatt Verrill

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS.

From The Wide World magazine, September 1918, Vol. XLI, No. 245 (American Edition). Digitized by Doug Frizzle, March 2014.

It is no exaggeration to say that British Guiana, a vast stretch of territory on the shoulders of the South American Continent, is one of the least-known portions of the globe. Here are great primeval forests, mighty rivers, huge waterfalls, extensive plateaus, and great mountain ranges, where dwell strange Indian tribes and quaint animal life of which virtually nothing is known. The Author, who has made it his business to penetrate into the unknown interior of this land, has specially written for “The Wide World Magazine” an account of his journeys and adventures, which will be found of absorbing interest. He discovered large rivers and mountains whose existence was unknown, and stumbled across primitive races who had never seen a white man before. His striking photographs give an added value to a fascinating narrative.

WE are prone to form opinions of strange places from our first impressions, and, in the majority of cases, such opinions are unjustified. This is the case with British Guiana, and the traveller whose experiences are confined to the low-lying coasts and mud-flats has no conception of the country as a whole.

Georgetown, the capital, is by no means unattractive, and the belt of swampy level land that extends inland for forty or fifty miles holds much of interest and beauty. But beyond this—a terra incognita to the majority of visitors and to a large proportion of the residents as well—lies a marvellous country of vast forests, limitless plains, towering mountains, mighty rivers and stupendous cataracts, a veritable wonderland teeming with the bird, animal, and insect life of the equatorial jungles, inhabited by peaceful but primitive Indians, and hiding in its fastnesses inconceivable resources and immeasurable wealth.

Much of this wonderful country is inaccessible and vast areas are still unknown and unexplored; but much may be visited by anyone who is willing to rough it and who does not mind discomforts, hardships, and a modicum of danger. To such, British Guiana offers attractions which cannot be found in any other land. Here one may see the illimitable tropic jungle in its natural, untouched state—the forests of Humboldt and Darwin; here the naturalist may revel in the wonderful flora of the South American “bush”; here the sportsman may hunt the stealthy jaguar, the clumsy tapir, the puma, the peccary, and hosts of smaller game both furred and feathered, while the angler will find ample opportunities for his skill with rod and line. The gamy lukanani, tropical prototype of the muscallonge; the flashing leaping pacu ; the giant haimara—often weighing upwards of two hundred pounds; the fierce man-eating perai, and even the regal tarpon, all abound in the rivers and streams. Here too the explorer will find a wide field and the mountain climber will see many a towering peak whose summit has never been trodden by human feet, while to others the strange primitive races with their savage weapons, their weird dances, their beautiful bead and feather ornaments, and their curious customs will prove a source of greatest interest. Finally, there are the magnificent scenery, the luxuriant vegetation, the gorgeous colouring, and the innumerable strange sights, which will prove a revelation to the most jaded globe-trotter.

And despite popular ideas to the contrary, it is neither a dangerous nor an unhealthy country. Back from the coastlands mosquitoes are almost unknown, and sand-flies, while abundant at times, are not unduly troublesome. Centipedes and scorpions there are, but one must search diligently to find them, while poisonous snakes are so rare that one may spend a year in the "bush” and never see one. Above the first rapids there are no swamps, and while many of the natives and some strangers suffer from “fever”—which is a mild form of malaria—yet such attacks are usually due to carelessness or to defying the simplest rules of health and hygiene.

In a way, travelling through Guiana is easy, for journeying is largely by boat upon the rivers, and the dangerous rapids and falls only add a thrill of adventure to the trip.

A brief journey into the Guiana wilds served only to whet my desire to see more of the country and to penetrate farther into its fastnesses. At the first opportunity I returned, and although a year of almost constant travel has been spent in the wilderness there is still much that I have not seen and many ambitions are still unsatisfied. As on my first trip, I set forth on my second expedition from Bartica, a tiny outpost of civilization at the junction of the Essequibo and Mazaruni Rivers. Bartica is the terminus of steamboat service from Georgetown, and is the starting place for the gold diggers and diamond-field workers far up the Cuyuni and Mazaruni Rivers, and otherwise is of no importance and little interest.

Here I procured my boat and crew, the former a spoon-bottomed, heavily-built craft about twenty-five feet in length, and designed especially for breasting the cataracts and running the rock-filled rapids of the rivers and known locally as a “batteau.” The crew consisted of six Indians—representing four tribes—with a Boviander, or captain, and bowman, while last, but perhaps most important of all, was my black boy Sam, jack-of-all-trades and master of all, but whose chief duties were to look after my personal comfort and outfit and cook my meals.

And now a word as to outfit, for in travelling through the Guiana hinterland one must carry everything required for the entire journey. First there are the men’s rations, provided in accordance with the Government regulations. Then the traveller’s personal provisions; the cooking utensils, hammock bags, steel canisters containing clothing, waterproof bags, hammocks, medicines, guns and ammunition, fishing tackle, trade goods for the Indians, axes and machetes, and, finally, the huge tarpaulin used as a covering for the load by day and as a tent at night.

It is no small matter to condense all these, and the thousand and one other essentials, so as to fit the capacity of a twenty-five-foot boat and yet leave space for ten men. Moreover, the outfit must be so arranged and packed that it is safe from the torrential tropical rains, and yet is readily accessible and can be transported piecemeal over the portages and around the rapids.

But at last all was in readiness; the officials inspected our craft and passed it—for no boat is permitted to start up the rivers until examined by a Government official and declared staunch and safe and branded with its load-line above the water-level—and with shouts of farewell from the assembled villagers the Indians dug their paddles into the river and we were off.

Swiftly the little town dropped astern. On our right the extensive buildings of the penal settlement gleamed upon their grassy hill, and ahead loomed Kartabo Point, with the Cuyuni mouth just beyond.

Kartabo Point is an interesting spot, historically, for here the sturdy Dutch had trading posts and a fort which was known as Kykoveral, the ruins of which still stand; but to-day the point is mainly of importance as the terminus of the Kartabo road, a trail leading for some seventy miles inland to the Peters gold mine, now abandoned.

Beyond Kartabo Point the scattered huts and cleared lands became fewer, and by sundown the last vestige of civilization had disappeared and our boat was run ashore just below Marshall Falls and camp was made in the primeval forest that hemmed the river on either hand. It is an interesting sight to watch the experienced river hands prepare camp. While one or two men rapidly clear the brush and small growth from the selected site, the captain and two helpers cut and trim small saplings. Placing the ridgepole on the ground between two trees the tarpaulin is spread over it. Then one end is lifted, placed in the forked end of another pole, and is quickly lifted and rested against one of the trees.

The process is next repeated at the other end of the ridge-pole; the tarpaulin is spread out and its edges tied to light poles set in the ground. A few lengths of saplings are laid to serve as a floor, and camp is complete. Meanwhile, one of the Indians has “caught” a fire, pots and pans are sizzling and boiling over the flames, and by the time the luxurious cotton hammocks are swung under the canvas shelter the meal is ready.

As with satisfied appetites we lit pipes and cigarettes and lolled in our hammocks the roar of the falls seemed close at hand. And here it may be well to explain that the so-called falls of the Guiana rivers are not true falls, but rapids; the real falls, no matter how small, being known locally as cataracts. These rapids are both dangerous and treacherous.

In the first place, the foaming, cream-coloured, broken water marks the channels, while the smooth brown spots denote jagged reefs and hidden rocks. In the second place, the rivers rise and fall with marvellous rapidity, and to pass the rapids in safety one must know each rock and reef, each eddy and current, at every stage of water. Moreover, there are backwaters, eddies, cross-currents, and huge whirlpools both above and below the falls, which may easily spell disaster and death if the least mistake is made, if a paddle snaps, or if there is the slightest hesitation, the least error of judgment, on the part of captain or crew.

Long before daylight we were aroused by the reverberating roars of the howling monkeys, although, after a few days in the bush, one becomes accustomed to the weird, rolling, thunderous voices of the “baboons,” as they are called, and sleeps soundly through their uproar, which invariably heralds the approaching dawn.

It was still dark when camp was broken and tarpaulin and dunnage were stowed and the men took their places at the paddles. Through the soft, white river mist we slipped away from the shore and headed for the falls. Very soon we were in the grip of the current, and the men paddled lustily, breasting the foam-flecked waters diagonally until a rugged mass of rocks was gained and we disembarked preparatory to hauling through the rapids.

The sun had now risen above the walls of forest to the east, the last thin wisps of vapour were being whisked away by the cool morning breeze, the rushing brown river glimmered and sparkled in the sunlight, flocks of parrots winged screeching overhead, and all about us the tumbling, foaming falls roared, plunging, between the sharp black rocks. There is always a thrill, a bit of excitement, in hauling through the falls, and no matter how often it is accomplished—and it must be done a score of times a day oftentimes—I never tire of watching the bronze-skinned men as they strain and labour, fighting their way inch by inch against the angry waters, shouting and laughing, wading, swimming, holding their own on submerged rocks and, at last, winning their battle with the boat safely above the falls.

And wonderful skill and judgment are required to accomplish the feat successfully. Two men grasp the stern lines, four others seize the bowline, and, half-wading, half-swimming, gain a foothold a hundred feet or more up-stream. Then, at a cry from the captain, the bowman swings the boat into the current; the men on the bow rope haul with all their strength; the captain shouts orders; the bowman paddles furiously, the men on the rocks strain to their task, and slowly the boat forges ahead. With consummate skill captain and bowman swing the craft clear of rocks, the stern warps keep it headed into the racing waters, and little by little the boat creeps up the rapids. About its bow the waters foam and seethe and the hungry waves leap above its rails, but in a few moments the fight is won and the craft shoots from the torrent into the calm waters above the brink of the falls.

Often, too, the excitement has just begun when the boat has been hauled through the rapids, for in many places huge whirlpools form above the falls, and through these the men must paddle for their very lives. With every ounce of strength of their knotted muscles the Indians ply their heavy paddles, the boat hangs motionless for an instant, quivering and vibrating to the drag of water, and then with a lurch darts forward. High above the rails boils the swirling maelstrom, and as the centre of the pool is reached the boat seems actually to rear on end. Then, ere one can realize how it has been accomplished, the craft dashes beyond the danger-point and floats safely in the narrow, swift-flowing channel beyond.

Many a boat has been sunk, many a man has lost his life, in these treacherous rapids and whirlpools, but in nearly every case it has been due to incompetent or intoxicated captains or bowmen, to overloaded boats, or to ignorance of the river. I have travelled up and down nearly every river in the colony, have run many a prohibited rapid, and have never met with a serious accident, my only mishap being a washout when hauling through a supposedly impossible fall on the Potaro.

Very often, however, the new-comer sits gripping the boat’s rails and gulping with mortal fear, for it seems as if no craft made by man could withstand the knocking about that the river boats receive. It is humanly impossible to avoid rocks at times, and with a sickening lurch and a crashing, grinding sound the boat will bank full upon some hidden boulder. Each second one expects it to fill and sink, for, perched upon the rock, it swings and tips perilously. But instantly the men slip overboard and, up to their necks in the water, tug and strain and lift it bodily from the reef, leaping nimbly in and grasping paddles once more when the craft floats free. It is to avoid sticking fast on rocks that the Guiana river boats are made spoon-bottomed and with no stem or stern posts, for modelled as they are they can be shoved forward, backwards, or sideways with equal ease.

It was a long hard tussle up Marshall Falls, for the tide was out—the tide rises and falls to the first rapids in all these rivers and the falls were at their worst. But at the end of two hours of herculean labours the last of the rapids was passed, and resuming our seats we sped swiftly up the still waters beyond.

These stretches of tranquil river are most welcome to the men, as they afford a respite from the terrible labour of hauling through the rapids. And they are so beautiful that one does not chafe at the loss of time, as with short lazy strokes the tired crew loiters along in the shadow of the verdured banks.

In a sheer two-hundred-foot wall the vast forests rise from the water’s edge in a thousand shades of green, so interwoven and dense that they seem draped in folds like a gigantic curtain of plush. Here and there blooming vines and flowering trees break the emerald ramparts with masses of scarlet, white, magenta, mauve, yellow, and blue, while fallen petals carpet the surface of the water with a multicoloured mosaic overhung by graceful palms and drooping festoons of foliage.

And such trees! Gigantic moras with huge, buttressed roots and gnarled trunks towering in massive four-foot columns; dark, brown-red purplehearts smooth and symmetrical as titanic iron pipes; scaly, pale-grey greenhearts;. balata and locusts, souris and letter-wood—a score of varieties of “ballis” and a hundred trees known only to the Indians and bush-men—spring upward and are lost to sight amid the canopy of foliage a hundred feet above the forest floor, like endless columns supporting a vast roof of green.

Swinging down from far-off branches, shooting upward from the earth, draping the mighty trees, crawling over the ground, clambering across rotting logs, knotted, twisted, inextricably tangled and interlaced, are the lianas, vines, and creepers, some delicate as silken threads; others great six-inch cables, and all binding and knotting the entire fabric of the forest into an impassable maze everywhere decked with strange orchids and weird air-plants. It is as if Nature had gone mad and, in a debauch of floral extravagance, had exhausted all her resources to produce this grotesquely beautiful, this impossibly unreal “bush,” so full of contradictions and surprises.

One sees huge trees with trunks ending a yard or more above the earth and supported only by scores of tiny, stilt-like roots no thicker than a lead pencil; soft, moss-grown palm trunks are armed with a myriad encircling rows of six-inch poisonous spikes; a gorgeously flowered trailer hides wicked recurved thorns beneath each bloom; a mass of maidenhair ferns forms a jungle higher than one’s head, with each fragile, delicate frond armed with needle-like spines; a dainty, fairylike flower gives off the stench of putrid flesh, and mosses upon the trees are so magnified that they appear as though viewed through a microscope; but everything is monstrous, gigantic, in this wonderland, and man seems puny, insignificant, and overwhelmed. And at every turn one meets with some new and amazing surprise, some dream-like, unbelievable condition. One brushes carelessly against a swinging tuft of grass and finds its innocent-looking blades shear through flesh and clothing like the keenest razor; one plucks a charming orchid and instantly, from hidden recesses, a horde of ants swarm forth and bite viciously at the offending hand; thoughtlessly, one strikes with machete at a six-inch shaft of silver-white, and the blade slices through it as through paper and, as the lofty top rips and crashes to earth, crimson blood oozes from the severed trunk; a moment later, the way is barred by a slender sapling, and one gapes dumbfounded when the keen-edged cutlass glances from it as though it were a bar of hardened steel.

To move about in this forest, even for a few yards, is well-nigh impossible, and only by forcing one’s way inch by inch, by hewing a passage and by constant exertion, can any progress be made. If the traveller covers a mile an hour he is doing well, for at every step he is tripped, bound, barred, torn, and scratched as if the vegetation were endowed with life and with devilish ingenuity were striving to keep back the intruder.

It is impossible to proceed quietly, and all living things take warning and become invisible, and one imagines the forest is barren of life; but in reality the bush teems with birds and beasts, and the native Indian, naked save for his scarlet lap, glides like a shadow through the labyrinth and finds game in plenty. Upon the wet and muddy ground his sharp eyes note the tracks of jaguar, deer, peccary, or tapir; a fragment of nibbled fruit or root tells him a shy agouti or a paca is close at hand; bits of seed or fruit drop from the lofty tree-tops, and his sharp vision discerns a troop of monkeys or a flock of curassows among the foliage. At times even the clumsy, blundering white man may stumble within sight of some strange bird or quadruped. It may be a huge ant-bear, so engrossed in tearing a dead tree to bits that he fails to hear your approach and continues his labours and laps up the swarming ants with his yard-long tongue while you watch him; or it may be a lithe and graceful ocelot, so intent on stalking an unsuspecting bush-turkey or a sleepy monkey that your proximity is unnoticed; or again, it may be a flock of trumpeters feeding or dancing in some tiny open glade.

And far overhead, unknown, unseen, forever out of reach of puny man, is another world, for in the dense roof of the jungle dwells a host of creatures who never descend to earth. Here is the home of the huge-billed toucans, the parrots, and the loud-voiced macaws; here troops of howlers and a score of smaller monkeys pass their lives; here myriads of bright-hued birds twitter and sing and fly from twig to twig and rear their young; here the slow-moving sloths spend their upside-down lives; and here the fierce Harpy eagles, the ocelots, the margay and the longtailed cats, the puma, and even the great spotted jaguar, find a happy hunting-ground.

But don’t expect to find the tropical bush as pictured in geographies of school days, or disappointment will be yours. Such forest, with its veritable menagerie, is a thing of the imagination, and one may travel for days in the Guiana wilderness and never see a four-footed creature nor any feathered life save parrots, toucans, and small birds.

At other times the traveller may be fortunate enough to see many denizens of the wilderness as he makes his way up the rivers by boat. Close to the banks, alligators and crocodiles rest like floating logs; otters swim and frolic in the stream and voice their resentment at the intruders by sharp dog-like yelps; monkeys may chatter from a vantage-point in the Mazetta trees along the shores; capybaras may be inquisitive enough to stand their ground until the boat is close at hand ere seeking refuge under water; deer, tapirs, or jaguars may be surprised in swimming from shore to shore, or if luck favours, huge twenty-foot anacondas may be seen as they lie coiled on the sun-warmed rocks or on weathered snags.

Even more wonderful than the bush and its inhabitants, and far more beautiful, are the reflections on these calm stretches of river. The water, stained a deep red-brown by the vegetation, mirrors the jungle-covered banks, the palms, and trees—each leaf and twig and detail, so perfectly that it is scarcely possible to say where water ends and land begins, and one has the strange sensation of travelling through air with forests above and beneath. Indeed, so polished and oil-like is the water that even the great dazzling blue butterflies flitting across the rivers have their cerulean counterparts in the waters over which they pass.

Amid such sights and through such scenery we paddled up the Mazaruni until, all too soon, the still waters were wrinkled with the current and lumps of creamy foam announced rapids ahead, and presently I was again standing on the rocks while the tireless men hauled their boat through the falls. A dozen times that day the boat was hauled through falls, and by ten in the morning we had passed Kwaipan, Mapituri, Espanol, and Tarpi Falls, and ran ashore at Sarpi Island for breakfast.

Breakfast in Guiana is not an early morning meal, but corresponds to our midday repast, and, when travelling on the rivers, it is customarily taken between ten and twelve.

While the meal was being prepared one of the Indians grasped bow and arrows and started over the rocks towards the nearest falls in search of fish, for shooting fish with bow and arrow is the common method of fishing with the Guiana Indians. They are wonderfully expert at this, and use a powerful seven-foot bow and six-foot arrow with a detachable, barbed, iron head. This tip is attached to the shaft by a strong line and thus forms a miniature harpoon shot from a bow. I never tired of watching the Bucks, as the aboriginal Indians are called, at this feat, and followed Joseph as he hurried towards the falls, stringing his bow as he went. To my eyes, there was nothing to be seen but a tumbling mass of foam and water, but the Indian evidently discerned a paku or a lukanani, for, crouching low, he slipped rapidly towards the cataract with weapons ready for instant use. Gaining a jutting spur of rock he suddenly rose, drew his bow to his ear, and drove the arrow half its length under water. Dropping his bow and extra arrows he sprang forward, plunged into the torrent, and seizing the bobbing shaft, scrambled back to land. Quickly he hauled in the line, and an instant later a ten-pound paku was flapping about on the rocks. In almost as many minutes he had shot five more fish, and grinned with well- merited pride at his success.

Breakfast over, we again resumed our journey, and all through the afternoon hauled through rapid after rapid. Sometimes these were small, and I remained in the shelter of the "tent” in the boat; but more often they were too swift and dangerous, and I was compelled to disembark and clamber over the rocks to the head of the falls. Strangely enough, these forbidding, water-worn rocks are by no means devoid of life. In the crevices, stunted wild guava trees find root; upon stranded logs and dead trees bright-flowered orchids grow in profusion, and every inch of surface, above the high-water mark, is covered with a miniature jungle and a number of large trees. Upon the bare, sun-baked rocks scores of nightjars roost and flit away a few feet at one’s approach; hummingbirds and tyrant flycatchers nest in the guavas, and parrots, parakeets, and red-headed finches are ever present in the denser growth.

And when the queer pink flowers, already mentioned, cover the rocks, immense flocks of yellow butterflies frequent them, transforming the ledges into sheets of gold and ever winging backwards and forwards across the river like clouds of wind blown autumn leaves.

Crab Falls, Mope, Okami, Maripa, and Popikai Falls were all safely overcome and, well satisfied with the day’s work, I let the weary men go into camp at Wasai Itabu shortly after four o'clock.

Here we were in a wonderful timber country, and camp was made in a greenheart forest. From my hammock I counted no fewer than fifty-five greenheart trees, the hardest and densest of wood, every one of which would have squared to eighteen inches or more, and yet, owing to lack of transportation, not a single stick of timber is ever cut here. Throughout a large part of British Guiana it is the same. There are vast resources in timber, forest products, and minerals, but between lack of transportation, the hopelessly inert Government, and the total absence of progressive energy on the part of the inhabitants, this marvellously rich land remains undeveloped, unproductive, and largely unknown. A few “pork knockers,” or independent gold-diggers, eke out a precarious livelihood by working the gold placers, a certain number of diamonds are won from the claims up river, and balata bleeders range the forests following their trade; but there is no organized, no extensive effort made to develop the interior, no improvement or advance in existing conditions, no incentives to induce either capital or labour to wrest wealth from the forests or the mineral deposits of the vast area of untrodden country stretching for hundreds o f miles away from Georgetown’s back door.

Early the next morning we reached Yamatuk Rapids; an hour later we were beyond Tokaima Falls, and we stopped for breakfast at Kapasi Island. Here the river was dotted with islands, varying in size from several miles in length to tiny rocks, but all covered with a marvellously luxuriant vegetation and hiding the shores from view, for at this point the river is nearly three miles wide.

For several hours we paddled rapidly upstream through the long stretch of Tupeku Still Water, and then, having negotiated Tupeku and Mary’s Falls, made camp below Itaballi Rapids.

So far we had seen no game, and I went into camp at three o'clock in order to send two of my Indians on a hunt. Shortly after they had left the report of gunshots reached us, and I felt sure of fresh meat for dinner, for very rarely does an Indian miss his quarry. They feel heartily ashamed at wasting a charge of powder and shot, and to make sure of every shot invariably get very close to their game before firing. As a result, small creatures are usually blown to bits, and the largest game, such as tapir, peccary, and jaguar, are killed with B.B. shot.

My faith in the Indians proved well-founded, for just before sundown they stepped from the forest, one carrying a good-sized deer and a pair of curassows or “powis”; the other with a bush-hog or peccary across his bronze shoulders. We dined regally that night, the Indians gorging themselves in their customary way, and the meat left from our feast was prepared for future use by “babricotting.”

This is done by suspending the meat on a grid of sticks above a smoky fire for a few hours. Partly dried and smoked in this way the meat will keep fresh and tender for weeks, and is as nourishing and palatable as when first killed.

As the Indians squatted about the glowing fires, or lounged in their hammocks, while waiting for the meat to cure, they whiled away their time by telling stories. These Indian tales are usually of a highly imaginative character, age-old legends, myths, and folk-tales. Some are picturesque and weird, others symbolical, many are humorous and a few truly poetical, and all are extremely interesting. But in order fully to appreciate them one must understand the Indians’ dialect, with which I was fortunately acquainted and thus able to follow them. There were stories of “Kenaima”—the fearful, mysterious blood-avenger; tales of "Gungas,” Warracabra Tigers, and other fierce, supernatural man-eating beasts; yarns of Didoes and Hooris, of the awful two-toed, claw-handed monkey-men, and of many another weird creature and spirit. All of these were fascinatingly interesting and were so convincingly told that one felt decidedly “creepy,” and started involuntarily and glanced nervously about when some soft-winged night-bird uttered its plaintive call or a tree-toad croaked unexpectedly in the black forest that hemmed us in.

It was nearly midnight when the last of the babricotted meat had been hung out of reach of prowling beasts, and the fires having died to smouldering coals, the Indians wrapped themselves in their hammocks like gigantic caterpillars in their cocoons. No doubt the Indians’ habit of thus completely enshrouding themselves is partly due to superstitious fear, but it is mainly to protect themselves from vampire bats. These blood-sucking, repulsive creatures abound in the Guiana bush, and passing up the river in the day one may see them by hundreds as, alarmed at the boat’s approach, they flit from their roosting-places and seek refuge a few yards ahead. Although greatly feared by the Indians and black people, in reality there is little danger of being bitten, for the bats will not enter a camp where a light is burning, and in all my experience in tropical forests I have never been attacked by a vampire, although on several occasions my men have had ears, toes, and fingers nipped by the creatures.

Itaballi, Sapira, and Koirimapa Falls form a long continuous chain of rapids, and for four hours the next morning the men toiled like demons to cover the five miles of tumbling broken water, the innumerable whirlpools, and the rushing sluiceways that stretch from Tamanu Hole to the foot of Farawakash Falls.

Then, having rested and breakfasted, the difficult and dangerous haul through Farawakash was begun. Here an impassable cataract bars the river and the passage is made through a narrow channel or “itabu,” which tears like a mill-race through the forest around the cataract. So swift is the current that time and again the men were swept from their footholds and only saved themselves by grasping overhanging lianas or jutting tree-roots. Frequently, too, they were compelled to make the warps fast to trees and rest from their labours, while in many places it was impossible to make headway against the swirl of water without taking a turn of the bowline around a tree and hauling in the slack inch by inch. But after two hours of heartbreaking exertions the boat emerged safely from the forest-walled itabu and was run ashore in the small lake-like expanse of still water at the head of the falls. Ten minutes’ paddling carried us across this to the foot of Kaburi Cataract, a lovely cascade a score of feet in height and stretching across the river from shore to shore. Here a portage has been constructed by the Government—a graded concrete way into which semi-cylindrical iron cross-pieces are embedded. These are supposed to serve as rollers, but they have been neglected until they have worn and rusted through and their jagged edges make hauling about as difficult as over the bare rocks, and they cut and scar a boat’s bottom horribly.

At this portage every article in our outfit was unloaded and carried overland on the men’s heads, and all hands were required to lift the heavy boat from the water to the portage. But once on the run it was comparatively easy to keep the craft moving, and an hour later everything had been restowed and we once more headed up the river.

Morawa Falls and Makasi were easily passed, and camp was made in the dense forest below Koimara Hole.

While camp was being made an Indian coorial, or light dug-out canoe, arrived with a party of Patamonas on a hunting and fishing trip. The frail and cranky craft was loaded to the gunwales with the two men, their wives, half-a-dozen children, several yelping, flea-bitten, emaciated dogs, bundles of cassava bread, hammocks, and cooking utensils, in addition to the weapons and fishing paraphernalia.

The men were short but finely-built fellows, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and small-limbed, like all the bush Indians; the women were as unprepossessing as usual and bore the blue tattooed "benna” lines about their mouths, which are typical of the Akawoia race, and, in addition, had designs painted in red upon foreheads and cheeks—potent charms to keep off evil spirits and safeguard the wearers when on a journey. All were as yet unspoiled by missionaries or civilization, and were garbed in their native costume, or lack of costume, consisting of scarlet laps or breech-clouts for the men, beautifully-wrought bead aprons or “queyus” for the women, and with innumerable strings of beads, teeth, and seeds about necks, arms, and legs; while the children were as innocent of clothing as so many brown monkeys.

The men were armed with bows and arrows, and, in addition, one bore an ancient muzzleloading gun and the other a twelve-foot blowpipe with a quiver of deadly poisoned arrows slung at his side.

With a low-voiced guttural “Howdy,” they made themselves at home with the confident freemasonry of the bush, while the women, ever silent and shy, erected a rude shelter of palm leaves, slung the hammocks, and prepared the evening meal. As usual, presents were exchanged, the Bucks giving us a haunch of labba (paca), a lukanani, and some cassava bread in exchange for black leaf tobacco, sugar, and salt, and, friendly relations having been thus established, the Patamonas cast aside their dignified reserve and were soon chatting and laughing with us on the best of terms.

(To be continued.)

Up The Mazaruni For Diamonds -Part 1

 Up The Mazaruni For Diamonds -Part 1

By W. Jean LaVarre

From The American Boy magazine, January, 1919. Digitized by Doug Frizzle, June 2012.

The Boy Scout Who Went Scouting in the Wilds

Editor’s Note—American boys are always doing interesting things. Occasionally one of them does something that is of extraordinary interest and value. Charlie Murphy did; his own story of his fourteen months in the Arctic appeared just a year ago in THE AMERICAN BOY. W. Jean LaVarre did; his own story of his remarkable adventures in the wilds of British Guiana starts on this page and will continue for several months, each installment taking him deeper into that strange land and revealing something of new interest. Jean LaVarre, a Virginian by birth, was 18 years old when he had the thrilling adventure which he describes so graphically. He was "prepared" for it. In 1911 he joined the Boy Scouts of America and helped to organize one of the first troops on Staten Island, New York. He became a First Class Scout, and earned sixteen merit badges and was appointed Patrol Leader of the first Honor Patrol in his city. Outdoor subjects have always been his hobby, especially mountain climbing and camping. He has been camping every year since he was ten years old, and says he intends to keep it up the rest of his life.

The voyage to South America and the trip into British Guiana wilds (several hundred miles farther inland than Colonel Roosevelt penetrated on his visit there) was the biggest of Jean LaVarre's many experiences in the open. He and his friend Edward P. Lewis, of Springfield, Mass., went hunting for diamonds, and for five months lived in the real "wilds” among uncivilized black men—an experience which few white men have had. Not only the adventures but the unfamiliar facts which LaVarre learned there, at first hand, make this a feature of unusual value.

 “HERE'S A QUEER looking letter," I said to myself, one day early in the spring of 1917. I could hardly make out the postmark. It was something of a surprise to receive a letter from British Guiana, as I finally deciphered it, but the contents were even more surprising.

The letter was from my friend Edward P. Lewis. "I need a partner in a diamond mining venture," he wrote. "Are you game to try it out with me? It will be a long trip full of adventures and dangers, but there are diamonds here to be had for the digging."

He wrote much more. I became enthusiastic on the moment and was determined to go if possible. I had little trouble in arranging this and wrote him that I would come.

On the tenth of May I sailed from New York on the steamship Saga to Barbados where Lewis met me. He was delighted and quite as enthusiastic as I. He had been in Georgetown, British Guiana, for a while on other business and had learned about the diamond fields away up the famous, and treacherous, Mazaruni River. From Barbados we sailed away In South America on the steamer Parima. I was surprised in find Georgetown such a large city, 60,000 inhabitants, and, as the buildings were all one and two stories, one can imagine how it spread out.

"Can we start to-morrow?" I asked, after we had reached our hotel. Lewis laughed.

"Hardly," he said. "This isn't like a trip back home where you can toss some clothes and clean collars in a bag, buy your ticket, catch your train and be off."

I had not given much thought to exactly how we were to travel. But I soon learned that to journey up a great river for hundreds of miles with a score of natives, taking all the food for a six months' stay, was a matter that could not be arranged in a moment.

The starting out place for the trip was twenty miles from Georgetown at a town upriver called Bartica. But as Bartica has only twenty inhabitants we bought everything at Georgetown. There we busied ourselves with the preparations. It seemed as though there were a million details to look after, and I got an idea of what an explorer is up against, as we had to outfit ourselves about the same as an exploring party would.

"We must get lead guns, beads, mirrors and other trinkets," said Lewis.

"What's the big idea?" I asked. "Are we to open a five and ten cent store for the native Indians up there?"

"Not exactly," laughed Lewis, "but we must have something to trade with. What use is a silver or gold coin to a native back hundreds of miles in the jungle? He'd rather have a twenty-five cent kitchen knife than a fifty dollar gold piece."

The "lead guns" are not lead, as I learned, but the very cheapest sort of cheap guns, manufactured in England solely for trading with semi-civilized and uncivilized people. No live American boy would take one as a gift, but I found that the natives treasured them above everything else they possessed.

We were fortunate in finding a Dutch captain, a man who has navigated the turbulent waters of the Mazaruni for twenty years. And he picked out a skilled "bowman," a native who stands at the bow of your boat, with an immense paddle, and fends it off rocks, gives steering directions and acts generally as a sort of life preserver for the boat.

Then there was "Jimmy." He was a negro, rather undersized and as black as the inside of a lump of coal. He appointed himself our special guardian, a sort of valet, overseer and servant. He looked after our personal belongings, cooked our food, made our tea and devoted himself exclusively to us.

Twenty paddlemen were also engaged. Sixteen of them were quite as black as our Jimmy, and four of them were in varying shades from tobacco brown to light molasses candy tint. These were of mixed Dutch and Negro blood.

"They are 'Bovianders,'" said the captain.

"Queer tribal name," I commented.

The captain laughed. "Not exactly a tribal name," he explained. "They live up the river quite a distance and so it is said that they come from 'above yonder.' They have twisted that into 'Boviander,' so that the word always means people who live up the river."

While we were engaging our staff the captain was getting boats for us. He selected a great fifty-foot boat seemingly as heavy as a locomotive. It looked like a crude craft, made of great thick planks. I soon learned the necessity of such a heavy boat. We also had a small boat for emergency and for little side trips here and there.

Next came the "cats." We had to take enough food for ourselves, our twenty-two helpers and partly enough for the native Indians that we were to employ later. When the big boat was finally loaded properly under the skillful direction of the captain, we had five tons of food aboard and this included no meat at all except salt fish. There was no need to take meat, for game and fresh fish were so plentiful that we were never without them.

There was a queer, tent-shaped rig amidships of our big craft. Beneath this was room enough for us to stay sheltered during the heat of the day. White men can seldom stand the midday heat in British Guiana.

Packed all about us was the food. Jimmy climbed to the top of the pile. The captain took his position aft. The sturdy Boviander bowman took his place at the bow with his immense paddle, the twenty paddle men took their places in four groups of five, one group on each side, forward and aft of the cargo.

Then they shoved off and began their peculiar, noisy paddling.

The little town of Bartica fell away behind us as we slid out into the broad expanse of the old Mazaruni.

We were off at last, on our great diamond mining adventure!

EAGERLY I scanned the waters and either shore, determined that nothing should escape me, that I should see everything and enjoy every possible thing there was to be enjoyed.

The captain sat, complacently smoking, at the stern of the boat, the great steering paddle, tied to the stern with thongs, in his hands. He looked as bored as if crossing the street to buy an evening paper. How could he, when there was such glorious adventure, I wondered. But afterwards I realized that twenty years of navigating the river had somewhat dulled the novelty of it for him. With him it was work, and nothing more.

To a boy used to paddling our own style of light canoes, the paddling methods of those black men seemed the most awkward in the world. Yet they "got there," and I doubt if any crew of white men, without years of practice, could have propelled the heavy craft as easily as they. Their method was to bend forward, holding the paddle horizontally and sliding it along the gunwale with a loud scraping noise, then suddenly lean over sidewise and dig the paddle viciously into the water, giving a sturdy backward tug with it, still scraping the paddle against the gunwales. At the end of this stroke they returned the paddle to the horizontal position with a loud thumping noise, sat up straight, then leaned forward and repeated the stroke.

They kept perfect time. No varsity crew boys ever worked in unison at the oars any better, and they were forever singing. It didn't matter whether they were paddling twenty feet across a narrow inlet or making an all day pull upstream, they always had music with their paddling.

They were crude songs, partly English that was scarcely understandable, partly native dialect and partly something else that may have been handed down to them from their ancestors who were captured in Africa so many generations ago and brought over by the early Dutch and English slave traders.

If the water was smooth and open, with no current, our twenty paddle men would sing as softly as the whispering of a summer breeze. But if there was a current they would sing louder. And the more difficult the paddling, the louder they would sing. In boiling rapids where it took every ounce of their strength and they had to take quick, short strokes to keep going, their voices arose to an almost howling crescendo.

Soon Bartica was lost to view around a point of land. For nearly six months we were to see no more civilization than Indian villages here and there, hidden far back from the river bank. As we swung up into the broad river where the current became strong enough to cause the paddlers to use a little extra "elbow grease" they broke into a queer song which I heard so many times after that, that it still rings in my ears. I cannot translate it. I do not know what it means, but imagine that it is some sort of love song to some dusky "Lena." This is the way it sounds:

"San, Lena, chile, I do love yo';

Me know so, hear so, yes!

Le, le, le, le, le, le,

Blow, ma booly boy, blow Califo 'ge 'ole,

Splenty o'gol's for A've been tol'

T' th' lan' o' Mazaruni!"

We came in sight of another boat. On the Mazaruni every boat one sees that is going in the same direction is an "adversary" and every paddler believes that it is his duty to pass it. Then you see some fancy paddle strokes, so weird and unusual and grotesque that they are difficult to describe. One would think that they were trying more to awe each other with their paddle gesticulations than with speed. How they race upstream, each determined to get and keep the lead! The captain told me that many lives were lost at rapids because the racing paddlers would give thought only to getting into the narrow passes first and were frequently crashed upon the rocks and overturned.

Not far from the little town is Kalcoon, the biological station where at various times Professor Beebe and the other scientists take up their intimate studies of tropical life. This station is on a high hill where the Mazaruni and Essequibo Rivers join. It was at this place that Colonel Roosevelt stopped when he visited the colony.

From this point the vegetation on both sides of the river became so dense that it seemed almost like greenish-black solid walls. No huts or signs of human life were visible at first. But finally, with sharp eyes, we got so we could detect a slight opening, a log landing at the water's edge or a faint suggestion of a thatched hut in back of the shore row of trees.

It would have been fearfully monotonous but for the fact that Lewis and I devised a new sort of game— to see which one could detect the greater number of signs of human habitation. Our natives, with sharper eyes, would verify our discoveries. All this was in the Boviander section, where the natives come down from " 'Bove yonder." Just before nightfall we reached the foot of the first falls and landed to make camp for the night.

Before the big boat touched land Lewis and I had leaped ashore to stretch our legs. The blacks jumped out into the shoal water and swung the boat into place and made it fast. Jimmy began taking ashore our shelters. Suddenly he began a frantic search and in despair cried:

"No cookum!"

"You bet you 'cookum,' " I shouted, "I'm starved."

"No cookum! No cookum!" repeated the distracted black boy, mournfully.

Lewis investigated and came back with a long face.

"We did a bright thing," he growled.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Left all of our cooking outfit down at the village!"

"There's two things to do, go without them or go back and get them," I suggested.

"Can't go without 'em," said Lewis.

"Then there's one thing to do," I laughed. I was not to be filled with gloom. The prospects of a great adventure were far too joyous. Our landing was at the last settlement of the Bovianders. These half Dutch, half Negro natives speak fairly understandable English. I scouted around amongst them, found a good canoe, took three black men and set out downriver. The two paddlers were sturdy boys and, going down with the current, they fairly made that old canoe whizz.

IT WAS MIDNIGHT when we got back to the village. Everyone was asleep except the dogs. They greeted us with howls, and many of the men turned out. Perhaps they thought they were to be attacked by some enemy tribe. But we soon explained, got our cooking outfit, lashed it carefully to the canoe and started back. There was no speeding up against the current, although the light canoe made better progress than our heavy boats. And then I heard a sound that made me think I was back home. It was the "put—put—put" of a gasoline motor. I was amazed.

"Fire boat," grunted one of the black men.

I hailed it. A Dutchman answered and came over to us. It was an ordinary native boat to which he had attached one of those portable motors which may be put on any boat. He was going upstream and gladly took us in tow, much to my delight. Otherwise I would not have reached camp until daylight, and the tropical nights (as I afterward learned) are not the sort of nights for anyone, especially a white man, to be out in, because of the terrible dampness and mists as well as insect pests.

As we chugged along upriver, my three blacks sitting back and grinning at their luck because they would be paid just the same for the trip although they escaped all of the hard work, there suddenly came across the black water the most weird sounds imaginable.

There were shrieks and falsetto laughter, squeaks and tinkles and shrill pipings and heavy stamping. I couldn't imagine what it all meant.

"Wedding celebration," said the Dutchman. "Let's put in and see the fun."

I stared at the black bank of the river whence came the weird sounds, but could see nothing. Finally, as my eyes became accustomed, I caught faint glimmers of light that seemed far inland, miles and miles, I thought. In reality the natives were no more than a quarter of a mile inland, or perhaps less. We found a landing place and, guided by the fearful din and the flickering lights, made our way through the jungle to the higher, dry ground beyond. I had all sorts of visions of great snakes dropping on me and wild jungle beasts grabbing at my heels, but nothing worse than giant mosquitoes came near me.

We came to the opening and a group of huts. In front of one hut was an improvised porch or platform. The boards were rough, uneven and loosely laid across supports. At one end sat a wrinkled and grizzled old man playing a squeaky fiddle. Beside him squatted two younger natives playing flutes. Another pounded upon the platform with a cocoanut shell, beating time. We were welcomed with nods and smiles, but the natives could not pause in their festival to do more. They were dancing on that platform. Overalls and frayed shirts and rough brogans made up the evening dress of most of the blacks, but the women were decked out in gaudy skirts and waists. Up and down and back and forth over the rough boards, pouncing and scraping and stomping their feet, they danced and laughed.

Tallow candles, oil lanterns and here and there kerosene lamps were affixed to hut poles or trees, and by this light the dancers cast amazing shadows over everything, shadows that moved and swayed and intertwined in a most awesome manner.

And everyone was talking and laughing at the same time. Every fourth word was understandable but there were many dialects and vernaculars. There were cocoanuts to eat and a peculiar sort of cake or bread. We watched the merrymaking for quite a while. The newly weds were cheered by means of peculiar calls when they danced together. I suppose those black children of the jungle danced all night. We finally grew weary of it all and set out for camp.

Such food as could be eaten without cooking had been served and everyone was asleep except Jimmy, who awaited my coming, and tumbled me into a hammock beneath a canvas shelter. I suppose I had slept many hours but it seemed no more than five minutes before I was wakened and crawled out for breakfast. The camp kitchen had been set up, the blacks had already eaten and were getting the boats ready. Our breakfast consisted of boiled rice, salt fish and biscuits.

The second day up the river was uneventful. There were broad sweeps of water, grand, wide curves and the seemingly endless mile after mile of thick jungle vegetation growing down to the water's edge. That night I had an opportunity to see how such an outfit was handled. We landed in a rather likely spot, not far back from the shore, at five o'clock. Some of the blacks brought the kitchen outfit ashore, others cut long poles and put up the canvas shelters. It seems that we took our "hotel" along with us, merely a great canvas cover, and spread it anew at each night's camp.

A great pole was placed in the crotch of two trees, about twelve feet above ground, the canvas stretched across this and propped up with shorter poles and ropes. Beneath this were stretched two hammocks, one for Lewis and one for myself. Meanwhile Captain Peter and the bowman swung their hammocks under the awning of the large boat.

Our twenty paddlers put up three smaller shelters beneath which they swung their own hammocks.

The tropic sun was turning the great Mazaruni to a sheet of molten gold, deep blue dusk was falling, this turning to gray, and then the camp fires began to glimmer here and there.

The captain and bowman needed no camp fire, sleeping on the boat, but we had our own, and the natives had their own at each shelter. Jimmy presided over our fire, made coffee for us and prepared our supper. Captain Pete and the bowman had charge of the food for the natives. The English laws outline clearly to the last ounce and gramme just how much food you must give the natives that work for you, to live on.

It was interesting to watch Captain Peter, assisted by the bowman, with their scales, measuring out the rations to our paddlers. The Government standard of weekly rations for each man are: flour, 7 pints; salt fish, 1 pound; sugar, 1 pound; rice, three and one-fourth pints; salt pork, 1 pound; dried peas, one and three-quarters pints; biscuits, 1 pound. Frequently the men prefer the extra portion of sugar in place of the peas, as the sugar is a delicacy with them, desired above all else.

Captain Peter, through long years of experience, knew just how to divide this weekly allowance into daily portions and the blacks trusted him. In line they would march down to the boat, each with a tin plate, and receive his portion, carefully weighed on the scales, then he would march back to his camp fire and prepare his food as best suited himself. At the same time each one was given extra tea, sugar and crackers for the light morning meal, to save time in breaking camp. With their pint of flour they baked a cake beside the fire, using the salt from their fish for the seasoning. Sometimes boiled plantains were eaten with their supper but these they brought with them as they are not furnished by the Government. These plantains are much like bananas, but smaller and really considerably different in taste. Then there was game and fish to supply additional meat so that, with the foodstuffs we brought along, everyone fared quite well.

As soon as they had eaten and cleaned their tin plates they crawled into their hammocks and filled their short black clay pipes with tobacco. I must say that it was not a very attractive brand of tobacco, to judge from the odor. That night we gave cigarettes to those who did not have them and after that we sold them cigarette tobacco and papers from our stock at cost. They are extremely fond of them.

IT WAS at these times, as I soon learned, that there was much amusement to be had with these blacks. I learned of their many superstitions, their ambitions, likes and dislikes and much of the customs of that wild country that could never be learned in any other manner. This I learned both by means of questions and by listening carefully as they talked to each other. Their English was about as easy to understand as that of the Southern Georgia darkey, when they cared to talk it.

A "Dodo" they told me—and they believed it, too—is a sort of hairy bird-beast twenty feet high which either eats men alive or carries them off to its jungle nest and makes slaves of them. Then they would name this or that acquaintance and say, "Ah spec' he shuah was et by a Dodo, yes suh."

Caven, one of our paddlers, solemnly assured me that he had seen a Dodo. Caven looked much like a Dodo, or some sort of a missing link, himself. He said he was out hunting monkeys and saw one.

"He gi' me scar' fo' true," said Caven, and he must have seen some weird thing, or dreamed that he did, for his teeth chattered even at the telling of it. These blacks could talk fairly understandable English when it was necessary for them to make themselves clear to us. Otherwise they could profess almost absolute ignorance of the language, and among themselves they frequently talked a jargon that would defy any linguist to interpret.

Our men soon formed themselves into cliques and they stuck to these groupings throughout the long trip. The Bovianders kept by themselves; the Berbicans (negroes from Berbice) by themselves; and the Demeranans (who believed themselves to be the salt of the earth) likewise flocked together. We had one Barbadian negro. Now to a British Guiana darkey, a darkey from Barbados—one of the Leeward Islands—is the essence of laziness and good-for-nothingness. I think the British Guiana darkey is right. But I found that Caven and his brother Berbicans were really the best of the lot. In every test of strength, bravery, skill and endurance, they led the other blacks.

I really did not get my initiation into the mysteries of hammock sleeping in the tropics until the second night because on the first night I tumbled in about three in the morning too tired to know whether I was in a hammock or a feather bed. But on this second night I found myself doubled up like a crescent moon. I twisted and squirmed and wriggled about in my fantastic debut into the brotherhood of hammock sleepers before I discovered that the trick was simple enough, once you got on to it, that of sleeping diagonally across it from head to foot.

Having made this discovery I arose and got out the victrola we bought in Georgetown. It was a small, cheap one, but the best investment 1 ever made. I don't know what induced me to do this, but with a large assortment of records that machine drove away gloom and dull care through many and many a dreary evening.

The blacks enjoyed it immensely, and it seemed strange to be mingling the voices of our opera singers with the screech of monkeys and the howls of red baboons and piping of strange night birds in the tropical jungle.

The camp fire died low, at last. Fresh lanterns were lighted and the men prepared for sleep. This was no simple matter to them. To me it was the most astonishing sight I had witnessed. They made ready for bed by putting on all of the clothing they possessed. Then they wrapped cloths around their hands, feet and necks. Some even pulled bags down over their heads and tied them. The "wealthy" blacks had bags for each foot. Our empty flour bags became grand prizes to be used for this purpose, which we awarded to the best workers.

By the faint camp fire light and flicker of lanterns those natives certainly did look queer, like fantastic goblins, all muffled up. There was little that seemed human about them as they clambered into their hammocks and rolled themselves up, pulling over the flaps until quite lost to view.

"Does it get so cold at night that we have to wrap up like that?" I asked Jimmy.

"No suh, dey's feered o' vampire bats. That there is a part protection."

I couldn't get the "part protection" meaning of it, and all Jimmy would explain was that they had some sort of superstitious "voodoo" rigamarole performances to keep away the vampires.

I was quite excited about it. From early boyhood I had read about the deadly vampire bats that come upon you when you are sleeping and suck your life blood away. Secretly I hoped that I would be bitten by one so that I could boast of it when I got back home.

The blacks were asleep. By virtue of being a sort of aide-de-camp Jimmy was allowed to swing his hammock in a corner of our shelter. He insisted that the lantern be kept burning all night.

"No need of it," I told him.

"Yes suh, they is, Mister Laver," (which was the best he could do in the way of pronouncing my name). "Ef yo' don' bu'n a lantum all night yo' will shuah be annoyed."

"Annoyed?" I laughed.

"Uh, huh, annoyed by vampires," he answered, very solemnly.

But I couldn't sleep with the lantern light in my eyes and so blew out the light. Several times in the night, poor scared Jimmy tried to light it, but I yelled at him.

Neither Lewis nor myself were ever bitten by a vampire. Sometimes one would alight on my hammock, but fly away without trying to bite me. Yet, despite their great care, our blacks were frequently bitten. They would become restless in the night, kick off some of their wrappings and then the vampires would get at them.

I have heard that vampires are deadly. I never knew personally of a fatal case. I do know that they always pick out a blood vessel for their biting spot and that they never awaken the sleeper. The more blood they draw, the sounder is the sleep of the victim and the bite does not become painful until the next day.

I should say that our crew of blacks must have lost, among them, a couple of quarts of blood during the trip. Some of them were quite lame and sore and a bit weakened as a result, but that was all. As near as I can figure it out the vampires prefer the blood from gentlemen of color rather than from pale-faced Americans.

"DAYLIGHT! Daylight!"

It was the stentorian shout of Captain Peter. He was a human alarm clock. He never failed to awaken at the first gleam of daylight. In the tropics it does not come on with a slow pink dawn as here, but seems to burst through the gray morning light in a flash.

There was a scramble everywhere and all tumbled out of the hammocks. Camp fires were lighted, tea was boiling and in a short time everyone was getting into the boat. The natives had our shelters down while we were drinking tea. They came down to the boat with their pots and pans jangling at their sides, and at the captain's cry, "In boats all!" we climbed in, the darkies took up their paddles and began their noisy paddling, singing at the same time. The sun was flaming over the top of the jungle from the distant shore of the river, three quarters of a mile away, and we set out on our journey.

Lewis and I took seats on top of the canvas where we could see everything. We passed through a wide part of the river full of islands and deep channels and treacherous currents and whirlpools. Only a skillful man like Captain Peter could have guided our boat through the right channels, as some of them contain whirlpools that look smooth enough on the surface but would have dragged even as heavy a craft as our own under without a struggle.

Some of the islands were a mile in area, some no bigger than a doormat. In and out amongst them we paddled and finally came to a smoother, more open part of the river.

"Eleven o'clock!" cried Captain Peter.

I looked at my watch. It was just eleven o'clock.

"Your watch is right, Captain," I called.

"I have no watch, sir," he replied. "I use God's time."

It was a fact, he told time by the sun, and seldom was a minute out of the way.

Eleven o'clock was always breakfast time. How those black men could paddle up against a strong current towing our smaller boat, from five o'clock to eleven with only a cup of tea was more than I could understand. Yet they did it, and worked well and never seemed hungry. At eleven we always went ashore and cooked breakfast, cakes, rice, boiled plantains, salt fish and tea. Then we would pile back into the boat again and keep on until just before sunset, trying to make a good landing in time to pitch camp before dark.

That long afternoon was tiresome to me. I scanned the deep foliage everywhere in hopes to see many wild beasts and reptiles. I recalled my geography, with its woodcuts of jungles showing great alligators on the shores, giant boa constrictors writhing in trees, monkeys hopping from branch to branch and queer, bright-colored birds flitting about. This was jungle, surely enough, with such thick vegetation that only crawling things could penetrate it, yet for hours I saw no signs of life there. There were wonderful orchids that would, if they could be brought to New York, sell for fabulous sums. There were queer looking trees, great fronded palms, hanging moss as thick as large hawsers and other growing things that I knew nothing about.

In Georgetown I had heard tales of giant forty-foot snakes. I never saw one. I did catch a glimpse of a small snake which they told me was deadly poison. He was hanging from a limb over the water. We were paddling close inshore to avoid a current. One of the blacks saw it and in a flash knocked it far away into the stream with a blow of his paddle and kept on paddling, because to him this was a common incident. His eyes were trained to see such things.

That night we camped at Topeka Falls, or just below them, and the roar lulled me to sleep.

I DISCOVERED that the first part of our trip up river was not as full of adventures as I had hoped. But adventure came in good time. The routine was the same, night after night, but there were many new things of interest to see, many narrow escapes and considerable trouble in one way and another. At this camping place I stripped and was about to take a swim.

"Hey, quit that," shouted Lewis.

"I won't hurt your old river," I laughed.

"You won't come out alive, sir," said the captain. "There isn't an alligator or crocodile or whatever you call 'em in sight," I insisted and started to dive. Jimmy restrained me.

"No go in. Fish eatum up," he said. I laughed at the idea of a fish eating me up. The captain tossed a salt fish into the water. There was a swish and a big fish came and grabbed it. I didn't get a very clear look at the fish but he looked bigger than a whale and his teeth seemed altogether too prominent for me to fool with.

I discovered that the river was full of "perai," a decidedly savage fish extremely fond of human beings.

One of them will devour a man in a short while.

I gave up my plan of having a swim and Lewis and I satisfied ourselves by sitting on the edge of the small boat and splashing water over each other.

Our fifth night was Saturday. We did not intend to travel or work on Sunday. We selected a splendid camp site. Heretofore the blacks had waited and given us the best camping place. But we had been treating them so well that they thought our kindness to them was not kindness at all, but fear of them. And so they started to make their shelter on the best spot.

"You can't have that place," I said.

"We got it," grinned one of the men. Most of the others stuck by him. One or two slunk off.

"Go down there," I commanded.

"We stay here," he declared and stood his ground. I was in an uncomfortable position. If I let them have their way this time there would be no living with them. If I got in a fight—they were, after all, twenty-two blacks to three whites—they could overpower us.

Suddenly I had a vision of how they would abuse us if I gave in. I could see them grinning at each other, believing that we were afraid of them. That situation would be unbearable. I turned on the black man and pointed with my left hand down the slope.

"Get down there and stay down!" I commanded.

"I won't —"

He didn't say any more. My fist shot out and took him under the ear and he went over like a stick of wood. Then I wheeled to face the others.

I REALLY EXPECTED a fight, but the blacks stared at their fallen companion who rolled down the slope, their eyes bulging, and before I had time to bark out a short command for them to get out they hastily snatched up their belongings and ran down the hill.

I stood there a moment, waiting to let my anger cool oft a little to make sure that I would not say things or do things unnecessarily severe or that I would regret. Then I strode down to where they were grouped and where the first black was dazedly rubbing his chin. When they saw me approach they again dropped their things and started to run away

"Don't run. You are all right there," I shouted. They paused and looked at me suspiciously.

“We are running this little outfit," I said to them, pointing to Lewis, and we are hiring you to work for us. You know your places. Keep them and you will get good treatment, otherwise you will be the sorriest niggers in British Guiana. For every wrong that you do, you shall be punished. For every good thing that you do you shall be rewarded. We are treating you kindly because it is the right thing to do, not because we are afraid of you. Your punishment for attempting to dispute our authority shall be to sleep to-night without your shelter cloth!"

Then I picked up their shelter cloth, turned my back on them and walked away. To be quite truthful, I was not a little frightened when I turned my back fearing treachery yet it was the only thing to do. I knew that I had to make them believe that I was without fear of them or of anything else, otherwise I would not win their respect or co-operation.

Meekly they arranged to hang their hammocks without the shelter cloth, seeming to take it for granted that they had this penalty coming to them for the way they had acted.

"You acted like a veteran explorer" said old Captain Peter to me. "You did just right, boy. If you had given in they would not have worked, they would have stolen everything and they would have abused you during all the trip."

Most of the white men that these native darkies knew had been of a rough sort, adventurous Dutchmen and others, who kicked them about and treated them without the least regard until the poor black boys—we call all blacks "boys"—thought that it was the white man's natural way. When we showed kindness to them and full regard for their comfort they mistook it for fear. And, thinking that we were afraid of them, they decided to run things themselves. It did not take them long to learn that American white men are not brutes and that when they worked hard and acted on the square they would be treated with kindness. And I am sure no group of native blacks, as a whole, ever worked more faithfully than this bunch after they had learned their lesson. There are always a few exceptions. One or two became lazy, one or two tried to steal diamonds, later, but we had our own methods of handling them.

For the first time in my life I learned by direct experience the value of superiority of intelligence. We white men, being mentally far superior to the blacks, could rule them. Had they known their own strength they could have overpowered us at any time. And I recalled that in all of my histories the same has held good. The mentally superior people have ruled the less intelligent.

This was our fifth night of camping on the banks of the Mazaruni. We were to be two nights here, as we did not intend to travel or work on Sunday.

By the time we had our shelters erected and this little mix-up with the blacks had been settled, Lewis suddenly looked up from his notebook in which he was keeping a sort of journal, and said, "Say!"

"Say it," I remarked, lazily, from my hammock where I was resting.

"Whoop-ee!" shouted Lewis, leaping to his feet.

"What's got you?" I demanded. "Is it a vampire down your neck or a crocodile up your trousers leg?"

"This, my beloved fellow American, happens to be the fourth day of July, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventeen, and the one hundred and forty-first year of our country's independence!" was his reply, whereupon I stared at him a moment and then I, too, leaped up and emitted a war whoop. Fourth of July in a far-away jungle! What to do? Well, we did it—did it up brown—but what we did, and how, I shall have to tell in the next chapter.

A weird Fourth of July celebration, baboon hunting, visits with the first native Indians encountered, and further hard progress up the Mazaruni—these are features of the second part of Jean LaVarre's story which will appear in the February number of The American Boy.